


Dead In Sneakers

by exposeyou



Series: Mergers & Acquisitions [1]
Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Boston, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:35:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5103119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exposeyou/pseuds/exposeyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Angel AU from season four, where Lilah wasn't killed by Jasmine and instead left Los Angeles for a new life in Boston. Where she wears sneakers, and gets a dog. However, it seems crossing a continent isn't enough to get her away from Wesley Wyndham-Pryce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead In Sneakers

Lilah hadn’t expected Wesley to come to say goodbye, but when she saw him through the peephole of her loft door, her heart skipped a beat.

She took a second to compose herself, then opened the door: “Come in.”

Wesley looked surprised by the lack of a quip. He entered, surveying the boxes piled around.  “I didn’t realise you were leaving.”

“Nor did I, until yesterday. But I got a call from a law firm back east who made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“Horse’s head in your bed?”

Lilah smiled. “Not quite. But I get the chance to run the supernatural projects division of Wickersham & Grey. It’s a small department – non-existent at the moment, actually -  but it’s one of the oldest firms in the States. They’re overjoyed to see Wolfram & Hart no more, and want to fill the gap in the market. That’s where I come in. Plus, I get a penthouse apartment in a Back Bay brownstone.”

 “I’m happy for you. A chance to start over. “

“I don’t need one, Wesley. I’m still me, still evil.” This, with a smile. “If you’re lucky I might have enough vacation days to come get some LA sunshine in the winter,” she continued.

Wesley put his hands in the pockets of his suede jacket and looked at his feet. “I won’t be here. I’m leaving myself, actually.”

“Oh, the Fang Gang still haven’t welcomed you back with open arms, despite you helping to save the world again?” She momentarily relished the wounded look in his eye – then chided herself for it.

Wesley might have flinched, but he didn’t bite back. “The Watchers’ Council are looking to rebuild. Since their numbers were decimated by the First, I’m suddenly valuable again. They want me to teach at the Academy so I’m leaving Los Angeles and moving to Cambridge.”

“You’re going home, then.”

He looked up. “In a sense, yes. I came to –“

“Say goodbye? Make a big scene? Save it, Wesley. I’m not one for dramatic farewells.” She turned back to her folding, trying to focus on getting her lines straight rather than the feelings in the pit of her stomach.

“Actually, I just came to return these. But fine, I’ll be off. Good luck.” Wesley tossed his keys to her apartment onto the pile of laundry, and walked out the door.

And that was that. It – all of it – was really, finally, over. She was going to ship her boxes, get on a plane to Boston, and Wolfram & Hart, Angel Investigations and Wesley Wyndham-Pryce were going to be out of her life, forever.

 

 

Lilah’s move to Boston brought with it some lifestyle changes. The company-owned apartment on the top floor of a Back Bay brownstone was a pleasant change from her old loft-style home, and she loved the neighbourhood (its plethora of designer boutiques meant shopping for workwear was a no-brainer). The sweep of the waterfront was quite beautiful, and made her morning runs tolerable, if still not enjoyable.

Yes, Lilah Morgan had taken up jogging. The woman who had refused to set foot in a Pilates class, instead hiring a personal trainer simply so she did not have to be seen red-faced in public, now sweated and even grunted her way down Storrow Drive most days. The vanity of her LA days had not utterly subsided; she still wanted to keep her figure, and she wouldn’t have made such a spectacle of herself in the days when she might have run into her vicious Wolfram & Hart colleagues, but now she had other things to worry about.

Lilah knew there was a serious chance that she might have to run for her life. Granted, whilst she was tasked with setting up a supernatural division at her new firm, its business wouldn’t necessarily be _evil_ in the way that Wolfram  & Hart’s was. The apocalypse wasn’t its raison d’etre, although they would find a way to monetise it should it come to pass. But whilst Lilah had left that business behind, she didn’t trust her old clients or colleagues not to come after her.

So there was the running, and she joined a new shooting range. Then she sat down in the back of a gun shop and explained to the proprietor that she needed eight cases of 9mm bullets – carved out of wood. She wiped the quizzical look off his face with a wad of cash and the promise of her repeat custom – if not a lucrative commercial contract from Wickersham & Grey.

He had never heard of them. Of course. Why would he? Still, the sharp business card and the money did the trick.

Ten days later she slid four of those eight cases across the desk at one of her weekly meetings with the firm’s head of security. Butler was as reassuringly tall and broad as a man in his line of work should be, and he didn’t treat her like a delicate little lady who needed protecting.

She had allowed herself to indulge in a whole five minutes of fantasising about him as a romantic prospect before she crushed that dream. Butler was far too useful as a colleague to consider taking as a lover.

 It was he who recommended the shooting range to Lilah, helped with her new state permits for her gun, and took seriously her insistence that her office would need magical protection. He had laughed at one of her requests, though.

“Forgive me, ma’am, but you don’t seem like a big animal lover.”

She shoot him a look. “I prefer them on my plate or my feet, but I’m serious about this. A guard dog. Something big and scary, but well-trained enough to live in an apartment. Preferably,” she said as she looked out of her window at the view, “something I could take running.”

“I’ll ask around, Ms Morgan. I’ve got a contact who breeds Rottweilers and Dobermanns for security contracts who might be able to find you something that would suit your situation. But can I ask, why a dog? If you want more protection than your gun can offer you, why not just take one of my team as a personal bodyguard?”

Lilah pressed her palms together. “Because, Butler, a dog is unlikely to be corrupted by promises of power, money or impending death, and kill me in my sleep. People can betray you. Fido won’t.”

“Not even for a nice juicy steak?”

Ms Morgan gave him her most withering glare, then left for her ten o’clock meeting. She heard Butler chuckling behind her, and allowed herself a smile.

_Three weeks later_

It was a Friday night, and Lilah was leaving work. Instead of reapplying her make-up, and maybe changing into a different outfit for the evening, she was making sure that her gun and her stake were easily accessible in her purse for the walk back to the brownstone.

With walking in mind, she took off her heels and swapped them for the pair of running shoes she kept under her desk before she left for the weekend. If she did have to run, she didn’t want to twist her ankle because of cobblestones. In LA, she would rather have been seen dead than in sneakers, but this wasn’t LA, and no-one would see her tonight unless a neighbour happened to pass her in the street. 

A month after her move, and Lilah had no plans for the weekend except for unpacking some boxes and getting her hair done. She had turned down several invitations for brunch with her new co-workers. She didn’t want to get too friendly with people she may have to fire once the new special projects department really got going.

So she was resigned to quiet evenings and weekends at home, settling in and reading over files. It made a change after the breakneck pace of life she was used to at Wolfram & Hart, where a quiet month was one that only saw her life at risk once. It should have been a relief.

Instead, Lilah Morgan was bored.

Her new home was pleasant, her new office was spacious, her co-workers were _nice_. And she hated it.

She had thought she wanted a quiet life for a change, thought she would enjoy sleeping easy in a city where no-one wanted to kill her. Instead she hated the monotony, and longed for her settling-in period to expire so she could get her teeth into a project  - even if it was just head-hunting in the figurative sense.

Not eager to return to her empty apartment, she took a meandering route home, and hovered outside of a bar. She could pick up a man with a mean streak, someone who could make her feel alive.

Lilah sashayed up to the door with her best smile on, only for the doorman to look her up and down, and to her utmost horror, shake his head. “Not in those shoes, sweetheart.”

Right, the sneakers.

Still, Lilah was horrified. She hadn’t been turned away from a bar since she turned 21. She retreated into the shadows of a nearby alleyway and stood pissed-off, hand on hip, considering alternative strategies for the evening. There was no point in being safe if she was so unutterably bored.

She fingered the cold metal of the gun in her bag, and had an idea.

It took two more nights of loitering in alleys and dressing in a style that was vulnerable, yet practical (she found pairing trousers and sensible shoes with something that left her neck bare ticked both criteria).

She was starting to give up hope of any paranormal activity, and was in fact hoping for a standard issue mugging if vamp activity wasn’t on the cards. Wooden bullets could still cause a human a hell of a lot of pain.

But finally, on the Sunday, as she walked up Public Alley 429, a bloodsucker took the bait.

He didn’t even bother with conversation or a ruse, just appeared from behind a dumpster with his eyes blazing yellow, like a baddy in a computer game. She reached for her gun – and he rushed her.

Before she could squeeze the trigger, she was flat on her back with him on top of her, her gun skittering out of her hand and across the sidewalk.

The monster lunged for her throat – then reared back, screaming.

Thank the Powers That Be for the cross she wore at night.

Sure, it might be ill-advised in the workplace, but it had bought her just enough time to grab her gun and pistol-whip the vampire in the head.

As he went down, she got back on her feet. Then one, two, three rounds squeezed off at him. The last just flew through the cloud of dust. Those wooden bullets sure did do the trick. Lilah looked down at the pile of dirt that had tried to kill her and smiled a smile so wide she could have sworn it gleamed in the dark.

She turned to head back to her apartment, body humming with adrenaline and joy, when she noticed it shining in the streetlamp, something wet on her white shirt. A red, red rose blooming through the fabric. Then she just saw black.

When she came to, she was no longer in a dingy alley, but instead in a hospital bed. A drip tube snaked its way into her arm, and she felt the depressingly familiar sensation of bandages around her  abdomen and a dressing on her old wound.

A nurse came by and confirmed her suspicions. She was in University Hospital and had been brought in by a man – a man who left no name – who had found her lying in an alleyway nearby, bleeding profusely. She had been given several blood transfusions, a truck-load of antibiotics, and had her reopened wound reclosed.

Lilah put the hospital in touch with the firm, who contacted their medical insurer who had her transferred to a private room immediately. Then she was forced to go through the laboriously slow and painful – not gut-wound painful, but close – process of negotiating how soon she could leave, and how much medical assistance the company could provide. Once Lilah was able to assure the hospital that she wouldn’t be unsupervised, or try to bathe by herself, or do anything that might rip her stitches out (and the list was _extensive_ , but she had no plans to go horseback riding or skydiving) she was allowed to leave.

But that wasn’t before the flowers arrived. A bouquet of white roses, with one red. The imagery wasn’t lost on Lilah. The card simply read ‘get well soon’. No name. Well, if her rescuer wanted to continue being all dark and mysterious, she didn’t mind. She would see him at the office soon enough.


End file.
